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In the corporate/sales world for about 13 years, and that's enough. Had a FTE last year and I've been trying to keep my head down but I just can't do it anymore.

One area I believe I excel is customer service. I've always had that comment from customers over the years. I also have a mechanical mindset and enjoy fixing things with my hands.

To me that really pairs with a service business, because I constantly hear of companies that just flat out don't call people back, or never show up to appointments.

The few first ideas that have come to mind:

1) General whole house checklist
- I haven't seen a service like that, but I'm sure it exists? Plenty of people around the area I live have lawn services and maid services. Why not a service that goes inside the house and maintains everything on a schedule? Filter changeouts, smoke alarm testing, hot water heater PRV check, checking drainage/gutters, etc. All of the things you are SUPPOSED to do, but no one ever does? Then prepare a report that shows the equipment they have, age of the equipment, estimated life, etc. Almost a way to budget ahead for potential equipment replacements.

Would anyone pay for this?

2) Septic Tank
- All of the companies I've seen have terrible reviews. It would be a disgusting job, but I also know it's very much needed. Plus, I know you are supposed to service them yearly but I don't know anyone that does that. Again, setting up some type of health check to make sure you don't get in a bad situation. Probably the highest up front cost of just purchasing a tanker and figuring out all the logistics.

3) Pressure Washing
- I feel like this is on several "home businesses!" lists. I have a pressure washer, but I don't see a lot of people paying for that type of work.

Those are the service ideas I had in the beginning.

I toyed around with an IT remote service company, but through some discussions on here it doesn't seem like the best idea. I am constantly the IT support for my family and extended family. Didn't know if there were families out there that didn't have access to tech support and I could remote in and help. Think there might be too many hurdles, and not many people would pay for that.

Another hurdle is I have an 8-5. My wife works from home, but I am the one supporting the family at this point. That's why service seems like a hard road (would force weird hours for customers) and I should be flipping products on Amazon or something else I can do sitting at a computer screen.

There are plenty of other "interests" I have but I don't really agree with the "turn your hobby into a business" idea. Seems like a good way to not enjoy your hobbies any longer, but maybe I'm wrong.

I've also looked into a few other areas, but it would require me to learn a skill I don't have yet.

I would pay for #1. As an individual who doesn't want to call 5 different companies for home maintenance (I am one of these). Maybe as a rental house owner trying to keep rentals maintained (I'm not one of these). Definitely as a commercial building owner, keeping up maintenance on my building and appearances/comfort for employees and customers (I am one of these).

You're right the hobby to business thing. I used to be into building and fixing guitars. I loved it, until people started paying me. Lots of customers for years. Enjoyed the money but it ruined guitars for me forever. I still play. But only fix my own guitar when needed.

I've never really even considered that to be honest, thought I should start small to figure out how to do everything before I jump in and attempt to purchase someone else. How do you find small businesses like that for sale? Seems like something I would need to get to know several of the players before they would open up and discuss the sell of their business.

I would pay for #1. As an individual who doesn't want to call 5 different companies for home maintenance (I am one of these). Maybe as a rental house owner trying to keep rentals maintained (I'm not one of these). Definitely as a commercial building owner, keeping up maintenance on my building and appearances/comfort for employees and customers (I am one of these).

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How much would you expect from a service like that? Would you want someone to keep up with all of your annual/quartly service tasks and then recommend other contractors for actual work? Or a catch all company that would come in, maintain everything and if something breaks also fix it? It sounds like it's starting to turn into an HVAC service contract company (like Trane or something along those lines).

1) General whole house checklist
- I haven't seen a service like that, but I'm sure it exists? Plenty of people around the area I live have lawn services and maid services. Why not a service that goes inside the house and maintains everything on a schedule? Filter changeouts, smoke alarm testing, hot water heater PRV check, checking drainage/gutters, etc. All of the things you are SUPPOSED to do, but no one ever does? Then prepare a report that shows the equipment they have, age of the equipment, estimated life, etc. Almost a way to budget ahead for potential equipment replacements.

How much would you expect from a service like that? Would you want someone to keep up with all of your annual/quartly service tasks and then recommend other contractors for actual work? Or a catch all company that would come in, maintain everything and if something breaks also fix it? It sounds like it's starting to turn into an HVAC service contract company (like Trane or something along those lines).

Click to expand...

With an office or retail location you get little holes in the walls, leaks around windows, carpet areas that need patching, plug sockets that need to be moved or replaced. I wouldn't expect one company to do all that - I would assume they sub it out. Personally I'm not overly sensitive about what they charge for that because it saves my business the internal work of keeping track of who we use for 100 different services. You might need either a contractor's license or whatever license (if any) property managers in your area use. So I would look into that aspect if you think you might do it.

Back when I had my original house cleaning business, after I added on carpet cleaning, I tried to add on a service that would change the filters every 30/60/90 days depending. My problem at the time was that a lot of those are in the ceiling and I didn't want to put my girls up on a ladder. Even the ones that didn't have the ceiling location, my girls didn't want to mess with the filter. So while I don't see it working with house cleaning, I see this as one of those great add on businesses for the doggy doo/cat box cleaning type business. They don't HAVE to hire your company for doggy doo/ cat box cleaning service but for the customers already had by these companies, it would be a great add on. Once you get it up and going, franchise it out.

On this type of subject, there is a really great guy named Blake that started a company called FilterTime.com Anything you could do like his company?

1) General whole house checklist
- I haven't seen a service like that, but I'm sure it exists? Plenty of people around the area I live have lawn services and maid services. Why not a service that goes inside the house and maintains everything on a schedule? Filter changeouts, smoke alarm testing, hot water heater PRV check, checking drainage/gutters, etc. All of the things you are SUPPOSED to do, but no one ever does? Then prepare a report that shows the equipment they have, age of the equipment, estimated life, etc. Almost a way to budget ahead for potential equipment replacements.

Would anyone pay for this?

Click to expand...

How comfortable do you think people would be with strange men coming into their homes, checking and messing with their smoke alarms, heaters, drains, filters ?

I'd bet most women as you might expect would be pretty uncomfortable with strange, rough men coming into their houses for any reason. I wouldn't trust anybody to do this other than maybe a big business, if that, and I'm a big boi that lifts and knows self defense.

It'd be better imho to set up a reputable upper class maintenance business with some sort of recurring up-sell, and high prices to service the affluent than to be any sort of generic service provider. Price competition is nonexistent, your costs are only slightly higher (uniform / better hiring), and marketing is easier because you can target them by area.

In the corporate/sales world for about 13 years, and that's enough. Had a FTE last year and I've been trying to keep my head down but I just can't do it anymore.

One area I believe I excel is customer service. I've always had that comment from customers over the years. I also have a mechanical mindset and enjoy fixing things with my hands.

To me that really pairs with a service business, because I constantly hear of companies that just flat out don't call people back, or never show up to appointments.

The few first ideas that have come to mind:

1) General whole house checklist
- I haven't seen a service like that, but I'm sure it exists? Plenty of people around the area I live have lawn services and maid services. Why not a service that goes inside the house and maintains everything on a schedule? Filter changeouts, smoke alarm testing, hot water heater PRV check, checking drainage/gutters, etc. All of the things you are SUPPOSED to do, but no one ever does? Then prepare a report that shows the equipment they have, age of the equipment, estimated life, etc. Almost a way to budget ahead for potential equipment replacements.

Would anyone pay for this?

2) Septic Tank
- All of the companies I've seen have terrible reviews. It would be a disgusting job, but I also know it's very much needed. Plus, I know you are supposed to service them yearly but I don't know anyone that does that. Again, setting up some type of health check to make sure you don't get in a bad situation. Probably the highest up front cost of just purchasing a tanker and figuring out all the logistics.

3) Pressure Washing
- I feel like this is on several "home businesses!" lists. I have a pressure washer, but I don't see a lot of people paying for that type of work.

Those are the service ideas I had in the beginning.

I toyed around with an IT remote service company, but through some discussions on here it doesn't seem like the best idea. I am constantly the IT support for my family and extended family. Didn't know if there were families out there that didn't have access to tech support and I could remote in and help. Think there might be too many hurdles, and not many people would pay for that.

Another hurdle is I have an 8-5. My wife works from home, but I am the one supporting the family at this point. That's why service seems like a hard road (would force weird hours for customers) and I should be flipping products on Amazon or something else I can do sitting at a computer screen.

There are plenty of other "interests" I have but I don't really agree with the "turn your hobby into a business" idea. Seems like a good way to not enjoy your hobbies any longer, but maybe I'm wrong.

I've also looked into a few other areas, but it would require me to learn a skill I don't have yet.

Reading back through the cheesecake thread, I've actually had a few offline conversations with Eric as well about a food business. Plus I'm also in NC!

I have always had a dessert receipe that I make every year around Christmas, and is something that many people usually start asking about in August/September.

There is only one thing that is holding me back at this point, and if I can figure out the correct way to jump it I'm ready to go all in.

In NC, there is a very specific law that I'm struggling with:

North Carolina’s program has some restrictions and a relatively long application process, but once approved, home processors have a lot of flexibility on what, where, and how much they can sell. One significant restriction is that the processor may never allow pets in their home, even if it’s only at night.

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Pets are never allowed in the home, at any time. This includes all forms of pets. It doesn't matter if your kitchen is completely closed off from the rest of the house...

I have 2 wild rambunctious animals that run around my house. They cause a huge mess, and require a lot of work. And outside of my 2 daughters I have 2 dogs as well lol.

We are a dog family and that's not something I would ask my family to give up. There are plenty of options for commercial rental kitchens, but I'd like to actually validate and expand a bit first before I take on an expense like that.

Looks like a program you have to apply for, and then the kitchen is $10/hour. My product requires mixes, then several hours in freezer, more preparation and then additional freezing.

These are small desserts you may sell in batches of 6-12 max (just a guess).

I actually care a lot more about this than HVAC, I just thought a food business was out of the question. There is a ton of good info in Eric's thread, and it gave me a little hope at least to try. If nothing else it can be my first failure notch on the belt.

There was a quick "call to action" plan in that thread that I will be following. I have a coding background, but want to use a quick refresher. I'm using Welcome to learn.freeCodeCamp! to brush up on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I will be doing that for 4 weeks.

My wife has her own design company. They design strategic brands for creative businesses. Mainly will redesign everything including logo, website, vision for ideal clients, etc.

She's spending a lot of money on web development after she has completed the design and the copy for the site. I would be able to help her increase her profits tremendously, and then hopefully that would give me some initial experience to start seeking clients on my own as well.

Just on a whim I did a search for CPAs that ranked highly in my area. I really liked the idea of targeting higher profile services instead of little mom and pop shops. My thought process was since tax season has just passed, surely there are plenty of CPAs that didn't get as much business as they wanted, or weren't getting the right clients. These were the top 5, in order of their rank.

Here are my initial takeaways. The most obvious thing is that the 1st and 3rd websites (debbiebrower and button) are using the EXACT SAME TEMPLATE. Even the same stock photography is scrolling along. I thought for sure they were different agents at the same firm, but I don't see anything (unless I'm blind) that ties them to a similar company.

In my mind that would be a great lead in for button.

greensboro accountant seems very generic, nothing stands out on that site.

Rosenbaum definitely appears the most dated in both design and copy (celebrating 35th anniversary in 2015).

My background (10+ years) is mostly in Commercial/Industrial HVAC Sales. I know you should target industries that you know (or at least familiar with), but I'm wondering if HVAC isn't high enough profit margins? Should I target the more lucrative industries?

Also, not sure where to start if I have zero portfolio. Upwork was mentioned, but then Fox suggested never going through that again. Is it worth doing Upwork simply as a portfolio builder? In the example above, let's say I do decide to go after mid size commercial HVAC service companies. I find one that has a sub-par website. Am I doing a quick one-page mock up site to show what it could be?

Also, not sure where to start if I have zero portfolio. Upwork was mentioned, but then Fox suggested never going through that again. Is it worth doing Upwork simply as a portfolio builder? In the example above, let's say I do decide to go after mid size commercial HVAC service companies. I find one that has a sub-par website. Am I doing a quick one-page mock up site to show what it could be?

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Answered my own question. Started watching the YouTube series and there is a ton of good stuff on there specifically about this.